


Found something real, that's out of touch

by YondudeUdonta



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 00:36:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15108068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YondudeUdonta/pseuds/YondudeUdonta
Summary: He doesn't remember exactly what it was that got him to that point, the very tipping point at least, but he remembers the build up of it all.Things would just be easier without him, that was it, that was thepoint.





	Found something real, that's out of touch

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Not About Angels- Birdy

Hermann drank a bottle of isopropyl alcohol once. Probably not a whole bottle, because he'd most likely be dead but, he'd had enough.

He doesn't remember exactly what it was that got him to that point, the very tipping point at least, but he remembers the build up of it all.

The Wall of Life had failed like he'd said and his father still told him his ideas were wrong despite them working and people kept dying and things would just.

Things would just be easier without him, that was it, that was the _point_.

He doesn't remember how much he drank, but he remembers the feelings before. Hermann remembers the panic and the anxiety and then just seeing the bottle there on the side of his tub from when he'd wiped down the nose of his glasses earlier (a habit he'd developed from his teen years to keep acne down in the pursuit of getting people to leave him alone, it hadn't worked) and his brain stopped screaming at him.

Everything felt crystal clear and foggy as frosted glass all at the same time.

He remembers the small ridges on the cap of the bottle pressing into the pads of his boney fingers as he opened it and that really, if you thought about it, the burn was just something to get used to the way you did with ethyl alcohol.

The next thing he remembers is waking up in a private room on the Shatterdome’s medical floor.

There's also the barest, faintest memory of the taste of charcoal and someone who smelled like Newton holding him while it came up.

He blinks.

Newton’s here.

Newton’s here with red-rimmed, purple-lack-of-sleep bruises underneath his eyes. He's swallowed up by one of Hermann’s sweaters and this is the first and only time Hermann has ever seen him sit still.

Hermann had made Newton his emergency contact back when they were still sending letters, because he knew that someone halfway across the world for him had better interests for him than his own father did. Despite them meeting and their friendship falling through he still trusted him to make the right decisions.

“The psychiatrist they've assigned you is good. She doesn't patronize you, you'll like her.”

“I don't want to talk about this.” Hermann says quietly.

“I didn't want to talk about it either but they'll threaten you with your job security here if you don't.”

“How would you know?” Hermann snaps, angry and irritable and his stomach and throat feel like they've been ripped apart from all of the induced vomiting. He immediately regrets it because he knows, he _knows_ Newt has mental health issues. “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay.” Newt says softly, pulls the sleeves of Hermann's sweater down past his hands, the tips of his fingers just barely poking out. “I get it.” Newt pauses. “I'd rather you didn't try again but it'd be hypocritical of me to ask you that so just,” Newt sighs quietly. “Keep goin’ 'til you can't for me, okay?”

Hermann agrees.

They don't speak about it but Newton pulls Hermann away from his work when it's the only thing keeping him alive.

–––

When Newt left Hermann for Shao Industries he threw himself fully and completely into his work.

He's always had an empty hole in his chest to fill. The one that your parents and your family and your friends fill with love and support and kindness.

No one but Newt and Sasha and Aleksis had really tried to fill it, had tried to connect with him and keep him afloat.

Sasha and Aleksis are gone, permanently gone, for ten years now.

Newt walked out a under a year after them chasing money and fame and someone, some _woman_ named Alice.

There's no one to stop Hermann from drowning himself in his work, in his research.

There's no one to stop him.

Hermann fills his prescriptions for his antidepressants every month (his dosage has doubled and is working it's way up to being tripled in these years where he has no one) takes them every day. The bottle of isopropyl alcohol sits on the back of his toilet seat so he has to see it every time he uses it.

Newt didn't come last time. It hurt so much and he cried so hard they had to sedate him, they kept him for thirteen straight days.

He hopes Newt will come next time, because he knows there will be, there isn't anyone he can talk to anymore. But if he doesn't well…

If Newt doesn't come, hopefully he won't have to wake up to see the empty chair beside his bed again.

Hopefully he won't wake up.


End file.
